The Delights of “No Gmail”

People following the blog will know that I’ve been using a temp email address this week – I’m now back using ewanspence at gmail dot com and all is well – So after asking around a few people, I think I’ve now a fair idea what happened to my Gmail account. The clue was that a similar thing had happened to my Ebay account, which also failed to recognise my password on returning from Heathrow.

My 3G data card, used at Heathrow, also has Wifi. So while my laptop’s signal was off, there was still a route into the PC, and my account details were likely ‘sniffed’ in the lounge, and then passed on to a Hong Kong based user who flipped over the passwords, security question and personal details.

I can’t see any damage in the account, anything missing, or any alert messages for other password changes. Unlike some people, my login details for sites, vital info, etc aren’t held in any sort of online file – they’re seeded through other documents that I carry on my person – so security questions on other sites stopped any vector. At that point it appears the account was forgotten about as being not profitable. All I had to do was wait out and keep hitting the Google Security Centre forms with info about my account, tags that were used, popular people who email me, and that was enough for them to say “yep, someone’s picked it up, we’ve reset it for you.”

One thing that I did find intriguing is that part of the security asks such great details as “what code you get in your invite email, when did you first start using Gmail, and a few other details that quite frankly I struggle to remember after over three years. So today’s five minute tip – go here and check you know all the details Google might ask if you land in a similar situation. Then check your secondary email address (for password recovery) is one you can still access.

Now, I’ve been out the loop for a week – if you mailed me about any drama, news, press releases or invites to dodgy French New Age Cafe’s at LeWeb next (which I’m attending) then please resend em if you’ve not heard a reply by now.